Fire, Fire
by kenwave
Summary: It isn't a surprise when the fire alarm goes off in the middle of the night. The apartment is located in a pretty rough neighbourhood so hearing an alarm is nothing new. Normally, he's learned to ignore them by now, but this time is different. This time he can smell the smoke from a fire. AU.


Fire, Fire

It isn't a surprise when the fire alarm goes off in the middle of the night. The apartment is located in a pretty rough neighbourhood so hearing an alarm is nothing new. Normally, he's learned to ignore them by now considering the times they've had false alarms far outweighs the times that there actually has been an emergency. He knows when he's woken up from his restless sleep that something's different this time. He can smell the faint tinge of smoke in the air, which triggers a response to make it to the rickety old fire escape as fast as he can.

Bucky quickly makes his way to the streets, having a few close calls on the way. He almost slips off of the fire escape at one point, resulting in him scraping his arm and thinking he should probably go to the emergency room to get a tetanus shot.

Soon, but not soon enough, his feet touch the solid ground and he feels a weight lift from his shoulders. He runs towards a crowd of tenants, the sound of the alarm drowned out by loud chatter. It seems to him that not many people know what's going on or what caused the it to go off, but now that Bucky has time to look at the building he sees that it was, in fact, on fire. His nose wasn't lying this time and it wasn't just someone having an illegal fire on their small balcony, or having a midnight smoke.

The fire is larger than he would have thought and he knows there's definitely going to be some permanent damage. Bucky briefly thinks about all of the textbooks he needs for school, but can't even bring himself to care at this point. He's losing much more than hundreds of dollars worth of textbooks. There are dozens of small knick knacks in his apartment that had been passed down to him from family members that are now long gone.

All of the pictures he once had of him with his sister and his parents, the few precious Christmases that they were able to spend together, and of a much happier period of his life. The badly drawn birthday cards he was given by Rebecca on his birthdays that he pretended to dislike but actually put away in scrapbooks for safe keeping.

He feels the breath catch in his throat, the voices around him getting louder and louder and the people coming closer to him. He tries to push his way out of the group to try to get some fresh air, some air that isn't tainted by the smell of smoke.

He accidentally bumps into a lady who is holding a toddler in her arms, she glares at him but Bucky doesn't bother to give her an apology. He trips over a shoe and nearly falls face first onto the pavement if it wasn't for gentle, strong hands that grab ahold of his biceps before he can make most of the journey downwards.

He can feel himself being led towards the curb and the person keeping him from making a bigger fool of himself steadies him as he attempts to sit down. Bucky lands gracelessly on the ground and puts his head between his knees, breathing deeply. One of the hands which had steadied him is now stroking small circles on his back, and the other is resting on his left shoulder. Bucky feels himself relax minutely.

A deep voice instructs him to inhale slowly and exhale through his nose when he says so. Bucky thinks he can do that. It seems like a simple enough task.

So for the next ten minutes that's all he keeps his mind on, breathing in and out, focussing on the sound of his breathing and the dull murmur of the crowd of people in the middle of the street.

Bucky feels his breathing start to steady and puts his head in his hands, letting out a loud groan.

"This night couldn't get any worse!" he mutters into his hands.

The man beside him must have heard him as he lets out a small laugh to that statement. "You could say that again."

Bucky turns to face him for the first time he's been with him. The body matches the voice that it came from, he thinks. Big muscles to go with a tall man, blond hair, blue eyes. God, he looks like a poster boy for the U.S. army.

"Was your apartment in there too?" Bucky asks, attempting to keep his mind off of all of the things he's lost in such a short amount of time.

"Yep," the man says without a note of sadness in his voice. He seems to have already accepted what had happened and doesn't seem too shaken up by the events of the evening. "My apartment's closer to the bottom though, so I don't think it'll get too damaged. I overheard people saying that the fire's on one of the top floors."

Bucky swears under his breath. The blond man seems to notice this, the hand that had been rubbing his back now gently resting on his shoulder, trying to bring him a small amount of comfort.

"I take it your's is on one of the floors closer to where the fire is?"

"Yeah," Bucky giggles hysterically. He let's out a large sigh and rests his head in his hands once more, not wanting to face reality.

With all of the shock and panic starting to drift away with every gently rub on his shoulder, he starts to realise how cold it is outside. He's no longer standing with the crowd of people, who are keeping each other warm with their shared body heat. Or those who were lucky enough to keep a straight head when they realised what was going on and brought a jacket or thick blanket with them somehow.

Without realising what he's doing, he starts to snuggle into the side of essentially a stranger who happened to put some time aside for him. He can't help it, the man is giving off body heat like a furnace.

The muscled blond doesn't seem to mind, however. Until he starts to push Bucky away, who gives him a betrayed look in return. Before Bucky can open his mouth to say anything, the man shrugs off his jacket and hands it to him.

"Take it," he says. Bucky stares at him, mouth slightly agape.

"Don't you need it? It's a bit cold out here."

"I'm fine, I have pajama pants and a pretty warm shirt on, you're just in boxers and a t-shirt. Honestly, you need it more than I do," the blond man explains to Bucky with a shrug.

Still staring at him, Bucky finally accepts the jacket and pulls it on, the warmth of the man engulfing him like a well loved blanket.

"Thanks," Bucky says.

"I don't like to lend my jacket to complete strangers," the man says. "I'm Steve Rogers."

"Bucky Barnes," Bucky introduces. Once he's wrapped up comfortably in Steve's jacket, he curls back up by his side. He may have lost his house and all of his possessions due to this fire, but at least he got a friend out of it. A small victory, but one none the less.

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><p><strong>AN: I've been swamped with a bunch of school work because midterms are coming up and I've been having a bought of writer's block. This is what I worked on in the meantime, something short and simple. I'm going to try to update Blackbird sometime soon, but I hold no promises as I am having difficulties with the chapter.**


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